A Kenyan court on Friday, November 6, sentenced Paul McKenzie, the leader of an apocalyptic religious sect, to 200 years in prison for killing 190 children by deliberately starving them. At his command, these children died and were buried in the Shahola forest. According to Reuters, McKenzie promised his followers that if they deprived themselves and their children of food before the end of the world, they would go to heaven. His accomplices forced people to carry out this order by threats and beatings. Some of the victims were buried alive and the bodies of others were found in sewage wells. The judge said the children saw their brother die after several days of starvation. People who tried to eat or drink water were beaten and imprisoned in houses that became places of forced fasting. Mackenzie's 28 accomplices were also sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 to 160 years. McKenzie's lawyer has announced that he will appeal the court's ruling. The case made headlines in April 2023, when police began searching for bodies in the Shakhula Forest, near the coastal town of Malandi. Although the latest trial only involved the murders of 190 children and one adult, Kenya's National Human Rights Commission announced that a total of 448 bodies had been found in the forest. McKenzie is also accused of ordering the killing of 52 other people at a separate location, in a village 30 kilometers from Shakhula Forest. Including these people, the number of possible victims in this case reaches 500 people. He has not accepted the charges related to this case.